


Here I Confess

by imightbejehan



Category: Kingdom Hearts, khux
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, khux spoilers, okay but hes not REALLY dead, or at least theory spoilers, post kh3, rated T for Vani's potty mouth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 12:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18094274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imightbejehan/pseuds/imightbejehan
Summary: “How ironic, isn’t it? You, our little hero of Light wandering around needing me to help you out.”“You know though, don’t you?” Ventus pressed.(In which the rumor comes out, 14 years in the making)





	Here I Confess

**Author's Note:**

> hi i'm new in the vanven part of kh fandom, especially writing it so oof sorry for mistakes.
> 
> i'm v much here for the "ven killed strelitzia" theory, and also have my own theories on how that would have affected the darkness in his heart (aka our boy vani) 
> 
> title ripped from lyrics of Colder Heavens by Blanco White, the song that got me to finally write for these boys. give it a listen!

              “Come out.”

              Ventus’ voice rang out in the empty chamber, touching all the corners that the dark hid from him. He didn’t bother lighting the room more, opting to let the moon peeking through the tall windows on each side of the chamber light his path. Though he had been awake for a while now, Ven still found the dark easier to navigate than the bright light of the day. His eyes had not adjusted, but he had begun to wonder if they ever would. Maybe it would just be another reminder of those years lost to time.

              “You could at least say please.” Ven spun around to watch Vanitas jump into his line of sight from the rafters as he spoke. “But, I suppose we are past the formalities now.”

              “Did we ever even have formalities?”

              “True,” Vanitas smirked. “What use is there for them when we are so _close_.”

              Ven scoffed. “What use are they when you never were formal to begin with.”

              “You got me there.” Vanitas approached, circling Ven as the other stood his ground. “So. What brings you here, crawling through the dark like a little heartless?”

              “I walked in just fine, thanks,” Ven snapped. Vanitas laughed, but let him continue. “We need to talk.”

              “Oh? Do we now? Funny, ‘cause you didn’t wanna talk too much last time ya saw me.”

              “You weren’t very interested in talking to me either, or at least not without our keyblades.”

              “Classic Venty Wenty, always turning the blame off on someone else.” Vanitas stopped his pacing just behind Ventus. Ven could feel his breath hot on his neck, brushing the blond hairs against his skin. He couldn’t suppress his shiver. “When are you gonna finally fess up, _Ven_.”

              Ven stepped forward and spun around, out of arms reach. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

              “I don’t know what you’re talking about ~ !” Vanitas mocked, cocking out his hip and flopping a hand about. “Cut the shit.”

              “This is exactly what I mean! You never actually talk to me, you only ever speak in these riddles that somehow I’m expected to know the answer to, but I don’t have so much of a hint as to what it could be.”

              Vanitas drew back at Ventus’ outburst, his smug expression morphing into something Ven could only describe as disappointment. He didn’t resume his pacing, but his eyes roamed across Ven’s body in a similar fashion. Neither moved as they looked each other up and down. Ventus found himself slightly out of breath from his rant, but he wasn’t able to catch it as the silence carried on.

              “It’s not my fault, what happened to us,” Ven said finally, startling Vanitas like a cat raising it’s hackles, “but it’s not your fault either. Neither of us asked for this, to be torn and created incomplete, but I’m sorry. I don’t know what else you want from me. Just tell me the truth.”

              “ _God_ ,” Vanitas hissed, jumping back into his aggressive stance and throwing his head back with a laugh. Ventus could see the shards still on the edges of his mask glimmering as the moonlight caught them. “You’re still fucking on about that, huh? You just never get it do ya?”

              “Well, you’re still talking in riddles! How am I supposed to ‘get’ anything when you won’t tell me!”

              “You really don’t get it, do you?” Vanitas snarled. He seemed almost shocked as it dawned on him, like he had thought Ventus had been lying to him. “Oh, that’s hilarious Ven. High-quality man right there.”

              Ventus hadn’t realized how used to Sora’s face he had become since waking up until he saw Vanitas twist his features into such hard expressions of pain and anger. He had never wondered before what Vanitas might look like with the gentle kindness ever-present on Sora’s face, but he found it hard not to now.

              He wanted to smooth out the lines between his brows, knitted so tightly together. He wanted brush the mask’s left-over shards away from his cheeks where they threatened to cut into the tight flesh. He wanted to soften his snarl into a genuine smile with the gentle press of his thumbs.

              But he couldn’t, so instead he spoke as calmly as he could muster. “I don’t. So, why don’t you tell me?”

              “Oh, you want to know now?” Vanitas squinted back at Ven, doubt swirling into mockery. “After all this running, you just suddenly want to sit down and listen like a good little boy?”

              He knew Vanitas wouldn’t trust him, though it frustrated him, so he chose his words carefully. “I spent a lot of time sleeping, sitting, thinking, but I could never find an answer to any of my questions. I understand that Master Xehanort needed to split me – us – for the _X_ -blade, I know what he has been trying to do all these years, but I’m still so lost. I’m wandering in the dark, Vanitas, looking at any spark to find my way out of it and no matter what I find, it always leads me back to you.”

              “How ironic, isn’t it? You, our little hero of Light wandering around needing _me_ to help you out.”

              “You know though, don’t you?” Ventus pressed.

              “Maybe so.”

              “Vanitas.”

              “ _Ventus_.”

              “Please,” Ven couldn’t keep his voice from cracking. Vanitas flinched at the sound. “I know you’ve been trying to tell me something, to guide me to some sort of conclusion. Now is the time!”

              Vanitas stared Ven down once again, searching for another crack, another sign of weakness. Ventus forced himself to relax; to lay himself bare in front of his other half.

              It felt like eternity before Vanitas spoke again, quietly breaking the stillness like a gasp in silence.

              “It is your fault.” Ventus opened his mouth to object, but Vanitas rushed to finish. “You don’t want it to be because you’re always running from it. But it is.”

              “How?”

              “You ever think about why it had to be you that Xehanort split? Why it was your heart that gave birth to me?”

              “Because I had darkness inside, like Terra.”

              “Terra,” Vanitas laughed, breaking through their quite whispers to raise his voice once again. “Terra’s darkness was like a tiny seed to be cultivated compared to the darkness inside your heart – compared to me. He needed to be coaxed and trained like a child to use it until Master Xehanort took over his vessel.

              But you, you on the other hand already had a wealth of Darkness inside you. You already had me inside of you before Master Xehanort even thought about cutting us apart.”

              “I don’t understand.”

              “You said you’ve been looking for hints, but there’s one that’s been with out for a while now: your little pet.”

              “My pet?”

              “ _Yes_ , your pet. Is the only thing you can do repeat my own words back at me?” Vanitas strode up fast, preventing Ventus from retreating. He stabbed a finger into the middle of his forehead, through Ven’s blond bangs to press the leather of his suit against his skin. “Just think for once.”

              Ventus waited for the Vanitas’ hand to drop to speak. “You mean Chirithy, don’t you?”

              “Yes of course I fucking do. Don’t forget that we are linked; I knew the moment that it reunited with you.”

              “What about it though? How is Chirithy a hint?”

              “Your pet here, is a special remnant of the past. Your past specifically. Of course, it’s so desperate for your love and attention after all these years that it wouldn’t tell you about the shit that you have forgotten. But too bad for it, a shadow like me dwells in the past.

              But I’m not just your shadow, I am your sin. I am your darkness; a burden born from the sins of your past that you have so willfully ignored for a hundred years.”

              Ventus didn’t realize he had switched into his fighting stance until he felt Wayward Wind materialize in his hand. Vanitas, however, didn’t make to move away. He kept his eyes glued to Ventus, unreadable but searching.

              “And what is this sin?” Now that his keyblade was summoned, Ventus kept it close even though Vanitas made no real move as a threat. The weight of it kept him grounded, a tether to the moment to cut through the tension.

              “A murder.”

              Ven felt his blood chill, like an ice spreading slowly up from his fingers and toes until eventually, the chill reached his heart and froze him. He hardly felt Wayward Wind vanish from his hand, instead his concentration was turned only on Vanitas’ sharp, toothy smile.

              “You killed an innocent girl, because you wanted her power, her spot, her rank. You murdered her, Ventus.”

              “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

              “You do!” Vanitas screamed, unable to control himself any longer. He lunged towards Ven, but didn’t strike, instead standing right in front of him, close to his face and forcing him to look straight into his eyes. “You killed her, and you’ve been running from it and I’ve had to live with the memory of her in my mind, replaying constantly. I can feel it in my hands still, the way you struck her from behind, every time I wield my keyblade. She’s dead just so you could steal a little black book.”

              “You’re lying,” Ventus wanted to look away, but found he couldn’t. Vanitas’ gaze held him in place. “I would never do such a horrible thing.”

              “Oh, but you did. _We_ did. I was born inside your heart the moment that you plotted it. You cannot escape me, you cannot run from your darkness any longer.”

              Vanitas moved again, faster than Ven’s mind could keep up with. He only saw the hand approach out of the corner of his eye with enough time to flinch away. It landed, softly, on his cheek. When he opened his eyes, he realized he was crying.

              Tears poured down into the fabric of Vanitas’ gloves as he attempted to wipe them away from Ven’s vision.

              “You did it,” Vanitas repeated in a quiet whisper, the kind only used in between lovers and conspirators like a secret in the night. “You did it.”

              Ventus wanted nothing more than to swat Vanitas away from him, to reject him with all his might and scream and shout that there is no way that he, Ventus, could kill an innocent girl, that there was a mistake, something was wrong. But he couldn’t, so he didn’t. Instead, he reached up and wiped away the tears forming in Vanitas’ eyes just as gently.

              “What should I do? Vanitas, I don’t know what to do, please.”

              “Never thought I’d be hearing you beg to me like this.” Vanitas chuckled, but there was no life behind it.

              “Please.”

              Ventus’ legs gave out, the feeling finally returning to them as the frost over his heart melted away into searing pain. Vanitas followed him down, clutching the back of his neck now as if he was afraid Ven would disappear as soon as he let go.

              “Please,” Ventus repeated, louder now.

              “I don’t fucking know.” Vanitas pulled Ventus’ forehead to his. He closed his eyes for a few moments, and Ven watched them flicker behind his eyelids and the way his long lashes caught his teardrops on his cheekbones. “I’ve had this conversation in my head so many times that I don’t even know if this is real or not now. I’ve been chasing after you forever. It hurts so much, Ven. I’m in constant pain away from you, like my soul is ripped in two, but when I’m with you, the you without the memory of everything that I am, it hurts so much I can hardly stand it. This is it, this is the end of the line now. I don’t know what else to do.”

              “Can you stay with me then, until I remember?”

              Vanitas opened his eyes, searching for a hidden meaning behind Ven’s. “What?”

              “Stay with me until we figure it out. I don’t know how to alleviate this pain. I’m not who I was when I did – when I did it. I don’t even know what’s really going on right now but – but what if what we need to do is just be together? Not for the _X_ -blade or anyone else’s ulterior motives, but because we chose to be together.” Vanitas didn’t attempt to speak again, so Ventus continued. “I don’t know how to take it back. I don’t know how to take anything back, but we can’t keep doing this like before can we?”

              The chamber felt bigger than it had before, Ven noticed, as they sat on the floor clutching each other. It had been so long since he had felt so close to Vanitas, so long that he had forgotten that the other boy had an overwhelming warmth to him. He burned, like the fire in the halls of the Land of Departure, when the air would cool and Master Eraqus would warm each of their rooms. It was a warmth like home. But Vanitas was home to the Graveyard, and the days of pain and torture Ventus could only feel distantly, before Xehanort had shipped him off.

              “You want me beside you for this?”

              “Vani, I didn’t just come here for answers. I came here for you.”

              “It will be painful.” As if to prove his point, Vanitas gripped the hairs on the nape of Ven’s neck tight. Ven refused to flinch.

              “I know. But if you are my sin, what better way to atone?”

              Vanitas dropped his head to Ventus’ shoulder. He pulled Ven close, rearranging slightly so every inch of their bodies was pressed together with only the interference of their clothes. Ven shifted his arms to his waist to clutch at Vanitas’ back.

              “Promise me. Promise me you’ll remember.”

              His grip slackened, but Ventus pulled him closer to make up the difference. There was a memory somewhere, tracing the edges of his mind, of a moment reversed; a moment when Vanitas had held his own limp body to his warmth and cried. He couldn’t help but wonder, how much his other had suffered both in his presence and in the absence of it.

              He pressed his face down into the mess of spikes that crowned Vanitas’ head, but found that he only smelled of dust.

              “I will. You don’t have to worry,” Ventus felt the fabric on his shoulder dampen with hidden tears. “You’ll always be here.”

              “I think, this is supposed to be where I say thanks.”

              “It’s okay,” Ven mouthed the words into his hair, but he knew Vanitas could hear him. “You can save that for next time.”

              Heaving out a heavy sigh, Vanitas gave a final shudder, but Ventus stayed there holding the air hours after his body had gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> *chuckles nervously*
> 
> anyways, i like to think that while vani might need to return to ven's heart, they can find peace and solace through it. or maybe he just needs to take a lil nap to become whole again. it's his turn to sleep after all. 
> 
> i'm on tumblr @ phantomtheives always thinking about angst and kh these days
> 
> please leave a kudo if you liked it, but also if you have a kh theory drop a comment bc i fucking love reading them


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